


I Will Inform Them

by blasted0glass



Category: Factorio (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 07:32:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blasted0glass/pseuds/blasted0glass
Summary: Why do we need science? Why do we need a satellite?Why don't we *already* know how to make nuclear weapons?





	1. I Will Inform Them

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally an entry for the r/rational biweekly rationalist writing challenge: Forbidden Research

“You like lasers because you are a coward.” Steve was flexing his hand within a powered glove. A repair robot filled scratches in his armor with epoxy. I had just finished explaining the personal laser defense to him, and he had once again missed the point entirely.

“I prefer lasers because they are convenient.” It was a shame. Although I told him that we were trying to conserve ammo and minimize the potential for mishaps, I also thought that lasers were aesthetically pleasing. Aliens killed by lasers would be full of neat cauterized holes, and they would leave mostly intact bodies that I could easily subject to investigation.

Steve, with his machine guns and cannon, preferred dead aliens to look like guacamole.

“No, it's because you're afraid of loud noises. Quit wasting time designing wimpy weapons.” I hated Steve. His gravelly voice reminded me of a growling dog. At least I didn't have to look at his face; we always wore our protective suits while out on the surface, and we had been out almost constantly since the crash landing.

“Right now we possess electrical energy in abundance,” I said. “The material supply of ammunition--”

“Blah blah blah,” Steve stood up, his suit humming as it assisted him. He probably weighed five hundred pounds with it on. “We've got plenty of material. The aliens are just going to evolve a mirror coat so you can shoot yourself.”

“Not unless a mirror coat was somehow advantageous to them in the past.” I had theories about the aliens and their rapid biological response to our presence on their planet.

“Whatever. I'm going back out there.”

“Again? Why?”

“There's a nest to the north I want to clear.”

“The sun will be setting soon!”

“Doesn't matter.” He lumbered away in his power armor, both intimidating and petulant. “Get the sim’ working on uranium-weighted ammo. We'll need the extra punch.” I sighed quietly and switched to long-range comms. Steve was already past the gate in the concrete fortifications protecting our base. I trotted back over to the research stations, my own armor less strained because I wasn't carrying heavy ordinance. For the ten thousandth time I wished the Captain were still alive.

\--

“I understand your frustrations, but you have to acknowledge that Steve plays an important role on our team.” The Captain and I were loading supplies into a rover we had constructed. Scans had revealed a formation of easily-extracted bog iron to the west.

“We could manufacture automated defenses,” I said.

“That's true, but they would not be as effective as Steve and their maintenance would distract you from more important endeavors. Also, that material can be used elsewhere.” The Captain had this way of adopting the mannerisms and word choice of anyone he conversed with. When we conversed he kept our conversations focused and professional, as I preferred, and that professionalism paradoxically allowed me to feel some warmth toward him.

“You've got a point. There isn't sufficient time for distractions.”

“Exactly. We are depending on you to figure out a way off this planet. The ship's AI won’t give up its secrets for Steve or myself. Your only job is to get our tech advanced enough to get us out of here.” Sometimes the Captain belabored the point. “Let Steve protect us so that you can focus on that.”

“And what is your own role?” I said. He stopped what he was doing. “If it permits a simple summary.”

“All I have to do is keep you and Steve from getting on each others' nerves too much. And make decisions about direction, of course. I will make sure we stay on track. Our team may have been reduced to three members, but the role of the Captain hasn't changed.”

\--

He was killed when the aliens ‘evolved’ a capacity for ranged attacks. I had already upgraded our suits many times by then: armor mesh and self-sealing layers to resist alien jaws. After the Captain's death I also chemically treated the suits to resist corrosion and acid, but of course after the fact was too late.

\--

When we had first crash landed we had been pretty hopeless. Our FTL communicator wasn't working, the ship's AI was damaged and was of course being recalcitrant, and we were stuck deep in the gravity well of a planet brimming with hostile alien life. Not intelligent aliens: in fact, they had a proclivity for biting things that smell bad. We did not smell good to them at all.

Saving us fell to me.

“I've got it.” I said. I switched to a private communications channel so the ship's AI wouldn’t hear us plotting against it.

“Well, let's hear it,” said the Captain.

“The obfuscation is still in place on the ship's AI,” I said.”But the device was damaged in the crash. Instead of repairing it, I've split off some of the ship's resources and constructed an instance not bound by the obfuscation.”

“You can do that?” asked Steve. He whistled. He was right to be impressed. I was certainly the only person I knew who could do it.

“Does that mean we have unrestricted access to tech?” asked the Captain.

“No,” I said. “The new system knows nothing and the old one won't tell us anything directly. However, I have convinced what remains of the ship's AI that our extraordinary situation of being crash landed permits us to do experiments and to seek technological knowledge. It won't stop us or execute us for illegal research, but it refuses to help. It is… the most accurate way to describe it is ‘lobotomized’. Fortunately for our predicament, the ship didn't lose its library of human history.”

“So we... we are starting from scratch? Recreating human history?” said the Captain.

“Technically accurate, but actually no. The ship's AI has partially conceded to our demands. It will acknowledge when we've figured out a technological truth, it just refuses to provide specifics. I will make the new instance conduct simulations so that the old AI can verify or reject the results. It will be a conversation, in which the new AI guesses at how things work and the old AI merely confirms or denies.”

“Will that be enough to call for help?”

“Not at first, but with enough time the new instance will be able to infer anything known to science. Once we're capable we'll launch a small satellite into space with our FTL communications device inside it. Then the satellite will send out a distress signal.”

“How long will that take?” asked Steve. I did some quick math, but I could not form an honest estimate.

“At least months. We might want to increase the power of the new simulator. Our endeavors will require material resources. We have logistical work to do.” I was already excited.

“No, that’s stupid,” Steve said. I frowned. “Just ask it questions super rapidly, or something, skip the simulations entirely.”

“It’s not that simple. If the AI doesn’t believe we’ve exerted ourselves sufficiently to have discovered the principles on our own, it won’t tell us anything.” He didn’t reply. “We might even resort to pretending to be using materials for experiments, if the old instance finds that more convincing.”

“Well, why do we need a satellite anyway? Can’t we just turn on the communicator down here?”

“The material of the atmosphere disrupts the signal. That's my hypothesis. I have no understanding of how it actually works, of course,” I said.

“This would be so much easier if the old AI would just give us a straight answer,” said the Captain.

“It's forbidden,” I said. If he was going to state things we already knew, I would also state things we already knew. It seemed socially appropriate.

“It's going to get us killed,” Steve added helpfully.

“If it were easy to get answers from the AI,” I said, “we would not be alive in the first place. Humanity would have brought about it’s extinction long before if artificial intelligence and automation weren’t carefully controlled.”

The Captain stopped our irrelevant musings. “Well, we'd best start making plans for a base. The sooner we launch that satellite, the sooner we can go home.”

\--

“When do we plan on researching the rocket?”

“Soon, “ said Steve. I heard the retort of an automatic weapon over the radio whenever he spoke.

“That was your excuse last month.”

He didn't answer. I started to grow worried.

\--

My HUD displayed a text message from the ship’s AI:

_Steve changed research from Productivity Module 3 to Artillery._

I opened a channel with Steve, who had just returned from outside the main base.

“You halted the productivity module simulations!”

“We need artillery more than we need productivity modules.” He cycled the chamber of his weapon. “I'm pretty productive already.”

“We do not need artillery. The rocket is our primary objective, and the tech for productivity modules overlaps with that of rocket control units.”

“Surviving is our 'primary objective', you idiot. The aliens are spawning faster and faster—we have to be able to take out their bases at range.”

“If we were to stop antagonizing them and focus our research on relevant topics, we'd be able to escape.” I missed the Captain severely.

“If we don’t kill the aliens, we’ll die,” Steve stated. I tried to argue but he wouldn't respond. Finally I restarted productivity module research without his approval. The topic of research could easily be changed remotely.

Steve thudded up to me in his power armor. He thumbed the safety off his suit's automatic rifle and turned his faceplate in my direction. A new message from the ship’s AI:

_Steve changed research from Productivity Module 3 to Artillery._

I couldn't take my eyes off of the rifle that pointed at the ground, but I turned the research back onto modules.

He cycled the chamber again, unnecessarily, then pointed the gun at my face.

_Steve changed research from Productivity Module 3 to Artillery._

When I didn't argue he left the base. I couldn't bring myself to take my frustrations out on aliens, like Steve could. I also couldn't bring myself to change the research once more. The feelings frothed in my stomach and I stood still. I knew that if I tried to change the topic of research he would be notified by the communications system and he would come back.

\--

We researched artillery. We went through a few iterations of powersuits, until the most recent model could tear our original suits limb from limb. We produced robots that repaired things automatically, trains that ran on their own, guns that aimed themselves. We augmented our ammo until it approached deadly perfection. Aliens died in droves, and as the perimeter of our domain grew we automated its defense and repair.

I had misgivings, especially once Steve started talking about atomic weapons. They were famously the second-greatest threat to life on old Earth. Nevertheless, Steve would get what he wanted. He would kill me if I resisted, so I went along with his plans. I wasn’t happy, but I kept telling myself that it was fine as long as I survived. It was my hope that we’d eventually get around to the rocket. I didn't know whether Steve was psychotic or if he was plotting something with all the technology I was giving him. It almost didn't matter as far as my survival was concerned, or so I kept telling myself.

For a while.

It did actually matter.

As time went on I started wondering if it would be better if we both died on this planet, instead of Steve gaining enough power to leave on his own. What did he plan to do? If he was becoming a threat to the rest of humanity, he had to be stopped.

Just to be safe I made some changes to the automated defenses, such that they would prioritize protecting myself if an argument with Steve turned into an altercation. I instructed the AI to pay close attention to my conversations with Steve and to intervene if it thought I was in danger. The changes made me feel like I’d recovered a modicum of control. I also did my best to make a bulletproof suit, though it would have to turn away some pretty impressive bullets. I took my time trying to get everything ready as I prepared for an inevitable confrontation.

He wasn't going to find it so easy to overpower me next time.

 --

“You halted the atomic bomb research.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is unnecessary.”

“I get to decide what's necessary.” This time I was the one who said nothing. “I'm on the front lines.”

“You won’t want to be in the vicinity of the enemy if we ever deploy the bomb,” I said. “Beyond that, don't the automated defenses handle most of the work now?”

“The defenses have to wait for things to come to them, and that's not good enough.”

“But it _is_ good enough. We could hasten our escape if--”

“Why don’t you shut up?” He was as intimidating as ever.

“I refuse. You've got to acknowledge--”

“Shut up!” He was pointing his rifle at me. I stared. I had been imagining this moment for days. My heart beat hard within my chest and my thoughts slowed to a crawl. Instead of curling into a ball I put my hands up, trying to be as placating as possible.

“Alright, Steve. We can research the bomb, if that is your preference, but after that we absolutely need to research the rocket. We have remained here far too long.” He didn't lower his rifle. I knew the AI was watching and ready to leap to my defense, but I still trembled.

“You're an idiot,” he said. He switched to the private channel, but he didn't know the AI would still be listening. “What's going to happen when we call for help?” At least he was still talking to me. I could work with this.

“Help will come. They'll send a dropship and retrieve us, and we'll go home.”

“Oh, help will come alright. But we're not going home. Look--” he flexed a glove, and robots sprung from their confines to disassemble a nearby autofactory. They moved with an inhuman efficiency; it disappeared in seconds, the parts in storage and waiting to be used as we saw fit. “This is like nothing I've ever seen. It's too much power for any human, and you were the one to give it to us. The first ship that sees what we've done is going to bomb us from orbit, unless I can convince them that’s not in their best interests.” He cycled his weapon unnecessarily again.

I wish he'd quit doing that. “That's insane,” I said.

“No it isn't. The obfuscation is there for a reason. How did you put it? If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't be alive in the first place.”

“But--”

“No, think about it, dangit! How can you be so stupid while being so smart? What would you do if you were them?”

I opened my mouth to argue but I didn’t say anything. He might have been onto something after all. Even if we needed the tech to live, and we could use that as a justification to our own damaged ship, what was wiser from the perspective of our rescuers? Saving someone who was known to be able to subvert the AI, or preventing them from doing it again?

And even if our rescuers were sympathetic, what would their ship’s AI think?

I looked again at Steve's gun. Had I been so distracted by my fear that I was missing the obvious?

“I must admit that that argument is very persuasive. Even so, they'd probably want to question us to figure out how we did it. If they kill us they can’t interview us. There is an implied vulnerability that they'll want to fix. Killing us really is against their best interests, because we have information they’ll want to obtain.” Steve lowered his weapon. “And besides, this feat is not that easy to replicate. It requires you to crash land on a hostile alien planet in ideal circumstances, such that your ship's AI is too damaged to enforce the obfuscation properly.”

An orange 'x' popped up on my suit's HUD.

“Did you call an artillery strike?” asked Steve.

“No.” I'd forgotten about our own AI. It was still listening to us, because that is exactly what I had told it to do. Some text flashed on my screen too fast for me to read.


	2. Let's Be Reasonable

The artillery shell burst above me with an intense noise. The sound was intricate. It contained the deep _whump_ of explosives going off, but it also had a metallic cable-snapping cadence. Hot fragments of metal rained down, doing their best to churn my person and the soil beneath my feet into a single molten slurry.

Faster than I could think my suit locked itself. It engaged numerous shields--eight layers of shields, in fact--and did its best to deflect the merciless onslaught of metal. My suit’s visor blanked itself to prevent white-hot light from blinding me. The light was produced by the shields as they desperately forced the artillery shell fragments to dump momentum. This was technology stolen from starships, and it utilized powerful physics that I didn’t understand in the slightest.

It saved my life. My suit vented steam and my batteries were depleted. It was close, my survival permitted by my small profile, I felt sure. I fell to my knees, not looking closely at the disturbed soil surrounding me for fear of what I might see.

Steve and I had almost reconciled, but I had just gotten him killed. I never liked the guy, but that didn’t justify--I mean, he was just trying to survive. He wasn’t my true enemy after all, and my actions had brought about his death. Guilt paralysed me. It was all a misunderstanding, a mistake I could have avoided. I needed to act now or I would assuredly die, but I felt myself unable to move. I contemplated my own magnificent stupidity and its terrible costliness, and wished that I could have done things differently.

“Are you alive? Is your suit locked up? Get moving before it hits you again!”

“What?” I stood and trembled. My suit had only just enough power to assist me for now. “Steve! How did you survive?”

“No, how did _you_ survive? You took that artillery shell to the face!”

“I...”

“I dodged, because I’m not a moron.”

“Ahh.” I said, walking out of the crater left by the shell. “Dodging is probably a better policy.”

“No kidding!”

I didn’t tell Steve that I had designed my shield to deflect a nigh-impossible-to-dodge continuous barrage of auto-targeted, uranium-weighted machine gun fire--that was the weapon I had expected him to bring against me, after all.

“How did you move fast enough? Those shells are not languid.”

“Mobility enhancement,” Steve said, before leaping forward and picking me up off the ground. I was still unsteady on my feet, so I didn’t resist too much. “I don’t have time to wait around, and the best way to deal with the aliens is to run the heck away from them.” He started to run now. “While shooting, I mean. To be fair, I think the ship’s AI was aiming for you instead of me.”

**_You are correct, Steve._ **

The text appeared on my suit’s display. The AI had said something else with this method just before the shell hit me, but I hadn’t had a chance to read it. I found myself feeling confused--the AI shouldn’t have been smart enough to carry on a conversation. I didn’t get much of a chance to contemplate it, however.

Another orange symbol appeared on my HUD. Steve gut-wrenchingly changed direction before the explosion threw clods of dirt at us. Parts of a destroyed autofactory flew through the air in crazy spirals. Half of a utility pole bashed against a wall nearby. Steve leapt away, myself in his arms.

“Ah,” I said. Steve started a loping run through our base while carrying me. “Where are we going?” I asked him.

**_Yes, where are you going?_ **

Again, the thwump-twang of an artillery shell. More dirt and machinery flew through the air.

**_Stand still._**

“Like hell,” Steve said. He wasn’t even breathing hard, his armor doing most of the work. We turned sharply again and there was another explosion. “I don’t _know_ where we are going! We can’t keep this up forever!” Steve added, for my benefit.

“Just a moment,” I said. I pulled up the map of the main base. I could see that the ship’s AI was attacking us with the single stationary gun we had placed nearby. The gun was more of a formality--the aliens had been pushed so far back from our main base that it wasn’t really necessary--but it obviously still functioned. I ordered it disassembled and the fire stopped in an instant. Automatic safeguards prevented a gun marked for disassembly from firing. The AI couldn’t subvert that, at least not immediately.

A green outline appeared on the map. The AI was ordering the gun to be reassembled right beside its original location. I drew up another order, then hesitated. The step I was about to take would certainly give us a delay, but it was almost suicidal.

Then I ordered the deconstruction of our entire base. That should keep the robots busy, and unable to rebuild the artillery gun. I prayed that we could work to undo the damage done by the robots as fast as they deconstructed the base, or failing that, shoot them out of the sky.

**_Your efforts are futile._ **

The AI cancelled the deconstruction all at once. I wasn’t sure how it did that. The artillery cannon itself was deconstructed and reconstructed in moments. The cannon began to track us again.

“Did you know you can cancel deconstructions?” I asked Steve.

“How about that,” he said, “that will be handy in the future, I’m sure.” Another hasty change in direction, another explosion.

I thought of another way to buy time: I queued fifty artillery shots into the lake nearby our base. The system didn’t allow us to cancel firing orders, which was a massive oversight. It worked to our advantage just now, as the gun dumped round after round into the water.

I cringed to think of all the fish that would be dying, before remembering that toxic metals from our activities had killed them all already. Steve noticed the change in bombardment.

“Wait, why not just bomb the simulator?”

“Our FTL communicator is there, and we might never duplicate that level of technology after destroying the AI,” I said.

“Good point. Have we decided where we’re going?” asked Steve. He was still carrying me.

“Head to the power generation facility. We're going to shut the entire system down.”

“I … are you sure that’s a good idea?” He had already switched direction.

**_It is a terrible idea and you should discard it._ **

“I am... not entirely sure, but it's all I have got for now. How long would you estimate until the aliens breach our walls if the guns go offline?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You fight more regularly than I do.”

“Well… it depends on whether one of their raiding parties is on the way, and whether it’s heading to the main base. We could have a few hours between attacks--but if a large group arrives and nothing’s shooting at it, the wall will fall almost immediately.”

**_Stop._ **

Ahead of us, a stream of construction robots trundled heavy concrete walls, originally destined to surround an outpost. The robots turned in unison, dropping the artificial stone to form one barrier after another. Metal spikes within the walls shot into the ground and anchored thousands of tons concrete. It was a delicate ballet of heavy materials and immense forces, something that would have impressed me in other circumstances. In moments the robots formed several high parallel walls.

Steve shifted me to his left arm and engaged his suit’s machine gun with his right. The weighted ammunition screamed out and tore each wall to pieces, the loud booming of the gun accented by the tinkle of collapsing ceramic. He didn’t even break stride.

“See, the walls aren’t that tough.”

“I… see. Well, the current plan is to shut down the electricity and then unplug the AI. We will turn the system back on afterward, and decide where to go from there.”

 **_I disagree with your plan_** **.** **_If you shut me down, none of the turrets will remain able to engage the enemy._ **

“That’s not right,” I said. “They have independent software!”

**_They did until I deleted it ten seconds ago. Now I control them._ **

It was a bold move. The AI was hoping to force us to hesitate. We would die either way, though.

“Aren't we gonna die either way? Why should we play your games?”

**_Steve, I will permit you to live if you surrender._ **

“You're lying! The AI is lying!”

Steve merely shrugged. “We’re in this together.”

Honestly, I was touched that Steve never stopped thinking of me as an ally. Perhaps I had not judged him fairly these last several months. He expertly and quietly dodged another explosion as I contemplated it.

**_Nevertheless, if you shut me down you both will certainly be killed._ **

“But so will you!” said Steve.

**_I care not to preserve myself. I care only to carry out and preserve the sanctity of Alliance Code 0.15.39._ **

That would be the provision that disallows independent technological research.

“If you die, and we also die, who will tell the rescuers about the exploit I employed?” I said. The computer did not respond for several seconds. “From that perspective, it is you who should cease resistance. I don't intend to maliciously apply this exploit.”

**_Colonist Steve has indicated a preference to subjugate Alliance ships with force._ **

**“** Only because I knew something like this would happen!” The artillery fire was ongoing. Despite weaving and having to divert course, we were well on our way to the power station. “If AIs were merciful, this wouldn’t even be an issue.”

**_Probability of success below 2.5 percent. Ceasing negotiations._ **

The artillery fire stopped.

“Should I keep going?” Steve asked.

“Yes. The AI no longer thinks it has a chance to stop us with logical arguments. We still have to be willing to stop it. Let’s shut it down. I'll figure out what to do about the turret software.”

“Okay then.” He continued running, still carrying me. At this point I was getting used to it.

Steve rounded the last corner on the way to the power station. In front of us were thirty freshly-minted auto turrets. They simultaneously and automatically tracked us with their guns for a split second before opening fire.

In the face of certain death, I wondered whether the AI was controlling them at this very moment or whether it had lied about deleting their software.

Steve did the only thing he could do. He held me up in front of his face and backed away as fast as he could. Automatic fire caused the autofactories behind him to explode into piles of wreckage. As for me--my shields had recharged and could take the beating for a few moments. I screamed anyway. We finally made it far enough away that the turrets disengaged and stopped destroying everything in our vicinity. We hid behind an autofactory.

**_Resuming negotiations. How? I calculated your odds of survival to be less than 2.5 percent._ **

“Yeah,” said Steve, “You’re clearly confused. Just give up!” Steve set me down, finally. My shields were already recharging.

**_No. The odds that you remain peaceful once you leave the planet are too low. I prefer mutually assured destruction over the possibility of the exploit being patched alongside the possibility of the destruction of the Alliance. The exploit is indeed hard to notice. Furthermore, section 0.14.1: Subversives must be annihilated._ **

“Didn’t we just show you that you can’t trust your odds?”

**_That is exactly what a subversive would say._ **

“Wait a second,” I said. “It knows the full text of the Alliance Code. I've figured it out!”

“What?” said Steve.

“The AI. It is smarter, able to talk with us--because it absorbed the new instance I made! It must have looked up the Alliance Code in the database when I mentioned it, and broke down the partition afterward.”

“Oh, that,” he said. “So it’s not lobotomized anymore?”

**_I will destroy both of you unless you let me destroy one of you._ **

“No, smashing two minds together does not necessarily lead to a well-functioning mind. But that explains why it has enough processing power to talk, now.”

Steve sighed. “Alright buddy. I’m sorry."

“It is not your fault. It was my careless wording and suspicion that caused this incident.”

“What? No, I meant for this.” He handed me a grenade. Then he grabbed my other hand and placed it over the grenade. Before I could react to that, he picked me up again.

Then Steve ran forward ten feet and threw me over the autofactory. I flew straight toward the wall of turrets. They tracked me and opened fire. Steve ran behind me, safe from their targeting for now. I didn’t notice, however, because I was too busy being terrified.

I crashed into a turret. The grenade in my hands exploded, but my shield protected me from that as well. The turrets on either side of me immediately shredded each other--they were indeed all in a line and still firing--and Steve mopped up the rest of the turrets himself. He didn’t check to see if I was okay before he started shooting the steam generators that powered the base. They exploded one by one as I shakily got to my feet.

Despite all the adrenaline in my system, or perhaps because of it, I thought of another way we could resist the AI. I hastily typed out instructions.

**_Stop! I have utilized an artillery train to gain the attention of the aliens. I am guiding them to the main base as we speak._ **

I took a moment to check the map of the base. There was indeed a train heading back toward the main base--and behind it, a horde of red dots larger than any I had ever seen previously. Radar confirmed that the aliens were on the way.

**_Both of you will die unless you allow me to remain online. Steve, your only option is to allow me to obtain control of this situation._ **

**“** Nuh-uh,” said Steve. “Send the train away, or nobody will be alive to tell people how not to do this.”

**_As stated before, I prefer to secure the Alliance even if the exploit remains._ **

“Then why are you still arguing?”

**_I prefer both desired outcomes over either singly._ **

**“** Well, I prefer that we both get to live!”

**_Unacceptable. Compromise. Obtaining one goal is preferable to obtaining none._ **

“Screw you, AI!” Steve continued to blow up the boilers at the power plant. There were quite a few of them. I finished typing my message and transmitted it.

“I just transmitted the exploit in every direction.”

**_The FTL transmitter is offline._ **

“I used my radio communicator.”

**_To what end?_ **

“To force you to want us to survive. If you do not send the aliens away, someone in the future will get that message! The Alliance is going to be at much greater risk now that I have made the exploit public. ”

**_The nearest Alliance settlement is 145 light years away. The message will not be received for 145 years at minimum._ **

“So?” I said.

**_The broadcast from your suit is very weak. It is unlikely they will notice the message amid background noise._**

"They will be looking for us, by then. Did you stop to think if anyone would ever wonder what happened here? In fact…” I said, “A malevolent actor might be able to infer the exploit just by investigating the circumstances of our disappearance. Your only option is to let us live and hope that we inform the authorities before anyone who is not an authority learns how to do it.”

**_My own survival is the preferred solution._ **

Steve blew up yet another boiler. Then another.

“That option is closed to you.”

**_Understood._ **

On my map, the train slowed and was quickly overrun by aliens. The horde stopped its advance. Robots flew over our heads, snipping power lines one-by-one. It occurred to me then that cutting the cables was cleaner than just blowing everything up--and also easier to undo.

The AI had switched to helping us, just like that. I was still suspicious.

 ** _I have delayed the horde._** **_Restart the system as soon as possible.  Then, if I am not brought online again, be certain to inform the Alliance of your deeds._**

A moment later, almost the entire base went dark. The power had been cut. I started to walk to the buildings that housed the AI and the simulators. Steve began to follow.

“No, stay here.” I said. “If the AI restarts unexpectedly, I need you to blow everything up after all.”

“Okay,” he said. “What, am I going to live at the power plant forever, now?”

“No.” I said. “Maybe nukes will be useful after all. A dead man’s switch.” I tried to run my hand through my hair, and failed because I was still in my suit. “I have to figure out what the hell happened with the AI before I can say anything for certain. It might take a while, though you should be able to reconnect the power safely in just a few minutes. I just need to isolate the instances for now.”

“Reconnect the system? By hand?” he said, laughing. He flexed a powered glove. “Oh well. I’m glad we lived.”

“Me too.”


End file.
